TAUNTON — Taunton city officials and the Bristol County District Attorney's office say they are being proactive by holding a forum about combating heroin abuse and a recent surge in overdoses.

The "Community Discussion on Combating the Abuse of Heroin" is scheduled to take place on Monday at 6 p.m. at Friedman Middle School, 500 Norton Ave., Taunton. Members of the general public are being encouraged to attend the meeting to discuss their concerns and ideas about the heroin problem and the overdose epidemic taking place in the city.

"We are really hopeful something comes out of this," said Gregg Miliote, a spokesman for Bristol County District Attorney Sam Sutter. "More attention, a better education, is really the key here."

The event, according to city organizers, will address the "the growing concerns of heroin use," the high number of overdoses recently and a tainted strain of heroin that has resulted in overdose deaths throughout the East Coast.

"After the past several weeks seeing the pattern of the heroin abuse and the talk amongst the community, I decided it was time to be proactive and have a community forum to discuss the dangers, but not just the dangers, but where people, families, friends and those afflicted can seek assistance," said Taunton Mayor Thomas Hoye Jr.

Hoye said he is working to bring guest speakers to the event and representatives from various public health and human service agencies. But Hoye said the event is also about listening for the public officials in attendance.

"As much as it's going to be a discussion, it's also going to be a listening session for our community leaders," Hoye said. "My hope is not to have long speeches, but to have a frank discussion about what's going on in our community, and what we can do to help those in need and to curb the problem. What I want is to give people the opportunity, not only for a group discussion, but one-on-one interaction with some of the service agencies and city officials."

The forum comes after a remarkably high level of heroin overdoses and other drug overdoses have been reported so far this year, including 43 cases that were treated at Morton Hospital in January alone.

The Taunton Police Department has released several messages to the public, warning of the high level of suspected overdoses they have seen in the community, including 20 suspected overdoses and three suspected overdose deaths that they responded to in January, along with an additional overdose death last week and at least 19 overdoses thus far in February.

There was also another suspected overdose death earlier this month in Taunton, but police said they were unsure if it was related to Oxycontin or not.

The Taunton Police Department and Chief Ed Walsh, who is also scheduled to appear at the forum, said that the relatively high level of overdoses this year can be attributed to an extremely potent variety of heroin and a strain of the drug that has been tainted with Fentanyl, a strong painkiller typically used in a hospital setting.

"It's not more people using heroin per se, but the heroin seems to be too strong or is tainted," Walsh said last week.

Miliote aid that his office responds to every fatal overdose in the city and has been following the pattern of increased overdoses in the community.

Miliote said that his office hopes to make a difference when it comes to the drug abuse problem because it is the root of most of the crimes that the DA prosecutes.

"A vast majority of crimes committed in Bristol County are in some way tied to drug addiction, whether drug dealing, drug purchasing, shoplifting to feed a habit … and a number of our homicides have been related to drugs, whether drug rips or drug deals gone bad," Miliote said. "People caught up in addiction problems not thinking clearly and crimes. Those are the main reasons why we would be involved."

Miliote said Sutter is looking forward to hearing from the community and working to make progress on the issue of heroin addiction.

"Anything that we can learn or do about heroin addiction is going to make Bristol County a safer place," Miliote said. "I know the DA is looking forward to the event and is hoping that there will be a great deal of public discussion at the event, and afterward, about creating unique and new ways to combat heroin addiction in Bristol County."

Hoye said that it's time for the city to come together and make gains on the fight against drug addiction and the problems creates by it.

"It's not just a problem here in Taunton, it's throughout the East Coast," Hoye said. "It certainly starts with early education. But absent that, as a community, we need to be able to respond. We can no longer sit back and pretend these problems don't affect our community like they do any others."